1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to mobile data systems, and more specifically relates to cooperative mobility management with a breakout system that supports data breakout at the edge of a mobile data network.
2. Background Art
Mobile phones have evolved into “smart phones” that allow a user not only to make a call, but also to access data, such as e-mails, the internet, etc. Mobile phone networks have evolved as well to provide the data services that new mobile devices require. For example, 3G networks cover most of the United States, and allow users high-speed wireless data access on their mobile devices. In addition, phones are not the only devices that can access mobile data networks. Many mobile phone companies provide equipment and services that allow a subscriber to plug a mobile access card into a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port on a laptop computer, and provide wireless internet to the laptop computer through the mobile data network. In addition, some newer mobile phones allow the mobile phone to function as a wireless hotspot, which supports connecting several laptop computers or other wireless devices to the mobile phone, which in turn provides data services via the mobile data network. As time marches on, the amount of data served on mobile data networks will continue to rise exponentially.
Mobile data networks include very expensive hardware and software, so upgrading the capability of existing networks is not an easy thing to do. It is not economically feasible for a mobile network provider to simply replace all older equipment with new equipment due to the expense of replacing the equipment. To facilitate additional capacity on mobile networks, a new “edge server” or “breakout system” is being developed by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). The breakout system or edge server is also referred to as a Mobile Internet Optimization Platform (MIOP). The MIOP entity corresponding to each basestation is referred to as a MIOP@NodeB. The MIOP@NodeB performs at the edge processing of offloaded data streams such as internet data streams while passing through the voice streams to the backend of the network. As used herein, the term “breakout system” in general means a system that connects between two computer systems on a data network and passes on some of the data on the data network between the two systems while breaking out for local processing other data streams normally flowing between the two computer systems on the data network. The term breakout system could broadly be construed as a network processing device or mechanism capable of routing all or part of the network traffic on a network data path between two other nodes through itself.
In a typical mobile data network, a user equipment (UE) such as a cell phone connects wirelessly to equipment at the basestation referred to as a NodeB. In the traditional mobile network the NodeB connects the UE to a radio network controller (RNC) which connects to a GPRS support node (SGSN). The SGSN is connected to a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) which provides connectivity to the internet via an operators service node (OSN). After a UE attaches to the mobile data network and opens a packet data protocol (PDP) session, the mobile data network establishes a tunnel between the GGSN and the UE. A mobility event is when the user moves the UE to a new location serviced by an adjacent NodeB or cell. When the UE moves from one NodeB to the next cell served by a second NodeB, the RNC and the GPRS support nodes work together to move the connection and switch the traffic to the new cell and the second NodeB. A transmission control protocol (TCP) or user datagram protocol (UDP) connection to the UE established before the mobility event will not be impacted since the TCP/UDP sockets were created on the UE and on the OSN or internet server such that the IP routing will not be affected.